UKGTR Endurance Masters - Donington GP - Jan 7

[Mark J]

That was a gruelling tough race, i felt totally knackered by the end of it. The race seemed to go on for ever 

Had a great opening 15 minutes of the race, getting past several cars to advance up the grid after some good battles with Ferraris (nice to see a few more of them on grid again) and soon found myself upto about 3rd or 4th ngt after a few others had incidents. Though it didnt last long as a re-surgent Radius came belting back at me and got past within a few laps.
I was still happy with my position and had built a good 8 second or so lead over the chasing pack of Bernie L, TT, Jan and others and the car felt good.
However, as Paul mentions above, whilst some GT cars were very careful whilst lapping others were very 'optimistic' or aggressive in their moves and i was less than impressed to get bundled off the track with a hefty side impact smack onto the grass on the uphill Schwantz curve. Losing all my lead in the process. Several times GT's tried to overtake at dodgy corners rather than waiting for the following straight and there were a few occasion where if i hadnt gone very wide there would have been an incident. Dont forget we NGT's are usually in a fierce race of our own where every dropped seconds hurts badly.
The car never felt the same after and i struggled to match my early pace, with all the guys behind me catching me easily and getting past when i pitted.
I opted not to repair at my pitstop and the car handled like crap for the remaining half of the race, with my lap times about a second or so consistenly slower than the first half of the race. By race end i could just about drag the car around and was covered in a sheen of sweat, finishing a miserable last by about 20 seconds.

Enjoyed the race until the impact then it was painful for the rest. Congrats to the Claus and Simon for their well deserved wins

[Paul968]

As Simon says, quite a race. Couldn't match Leuven or Mo in qual (great time in the Verti-Mo!), but when the race started I was able to hang on to the 2 of them as they battled over the opening laps. Leuven then had a spin at Coppice, and not long after I got a good exit from the last corner to pass Mo into T1. Good job from the sound of it, as he froze just afterwards . I could then work on stretching a lead, which I'd eaked out to around 17 secs by pitstop time. I thought this would be enough, even allowing for the sneaky ones using a full fuel load, but for some reason I lost time as the crew repaired some damage - strange as I'd had no contact. I came out with Simon right behind, but I was too cautious trying to stay out of the way of approaching cars and Simon nipped past on the inside. I took a few laps to get the tyres up to temp and then started pushing. We had a terrific scrap for several laps, including an unfortunate mistake by me when I went too deep at the last corner and nudged Bernie off (sorry m8, I was only trying to pass Simon). I gave Simon the place back and carried on the chase, which finally succeeded with a pass into the melbourne loop. We then had a long stretch where the GTs conspired to break things up rather effectively (not intentionally of course) and neither of us could settle into a rhythm. With 10 mins to go I had just started to edge away when Martin made the same mistake as Me (and Simon) at the last corner, and spun me round. We locked horns nose to nose for a while, as I couldn't reverse  across the track, but when things finally got sorted, I tried a spin turn which went pear shaped and ended up on the inside 90 deg to the track and up against the barrier. Took ages to get back on  safely, by which time I was way down. I got one place back by the finish after harrying Bernie into a spin, but finished a frustrated 16th. On reflection though, I had a great time racing, which is the most important thing.

Well done to Claus and Simon and thx to the GTs who were very courteous when lapping (too courteous in some cases when I just wanted them to get a move on!).

Paul

[CeeJay]

Qual was bit of a lottery, would have a good lap goin and then an NGT would appear, good thing session is relatively long so there's the possibity to go out twice, eventually managed to get in a free gap.

Race was good, got a free back alrdy after turn 1 when Ruskus and Martin had a come together, after 2 more laps tires started to work and could push a little more and slowly build a gap. Race was pretty uneventful, had time to be patient with the NGTs and just overtake them under acceleration, only a little scare when a Lambo suddenly lifted when I was close behind on the racingline to let me by before the hairpin.

And Martin you shouldn't stop now, you're the only one left to battle Ruskus for the overall win 

[Madd-RIP]

  that Lambo was me, Thought you were a bit further away than you obviously were, sorry about that Ceejay

[jan duijs]

Just as i gave up to connect to lobby on my last try,i got in!! No regrets about that,eventfull race
Many nice battles before the pitstop,i suprised myself when i overtook Leuven at the last corner before SF,after the stops there was a feeling of "hello guys where are you i want to play ",how do you all do that these fast stops??
Hope to participate more in Endurance really enjoyed last night.


Jan

[Jure]

I had a terrible race 

Couldn't get a clean lap in quali (not that it mattered, bloody tyres took 5 (five) laps to heat up and even then they were in very low 80s if at all), started dead last in GT, felt like a complete noob.  Then, retarted as I am I went and did "quick last minute setup change". Result? Overheating brakes (duct 2, brakes went over 600 deg. celsius in last two corners after the chicane, which were suppose to be corners where my setup should have excelled), rear wing 12 clearly wasn't a good option anyway, it took me ages just to pass NGT's on straights. Ouch. Running on soft fronts/medium rear is a good option, but not if they NEVER go over 80 degrees. Dammit. Talk about driving on ice

Clipped a NGT Porsche (dunno who) in penultimate corner (hairpin), didn't want to get by him, but then he ran wide and I went, well, OK, if u insist. Turns out he just went wide and not "here's some room for ya", so we swapped sidemirrors or smthn. No harm done, I hope.

Pitted on lap 30, lost good 15 seconds (hit that ignition button 4 times. nothing, still no fuel going in. WTF?!?!), had two spins afterwards while trying to push, but got caught by GT aliens, so I went inventive and tried to let them by on wrong part of the track. Wuiiiii, you spin me round round baby. Luckily, no one got hurt, i.e. top runners weren't hurt by my ballet. 

It was funny as hell though, caught myself deliberately easing off throttle (whilst running 10th, you know, who cares ) just to enjoy watching great NGT battles in front of me. 

Can't wait for sprint event, was a cool race and I'm still happy altough getting home 2 laps down. Was surprised I've managed to finish, bladder was the size of a basketball, I'm sure, plus there was no motivation to drive on s****y setup. 2 points is better then nothing, I guess.

Congrats to winners, big jawdrop for qualifying (did u guys notice time differences in GT class? OMFG, how cool is that!?!!?).

I love this game

[mo]

I see from the replay that my car lagged badly when my pc froze. Apologies to Radius who spun out because of this, nothing I could do though, and my pc is usually rock solid.

I have no idea how you got the Vertigo round there so quickly Mo! 

The setup is in the online garage if you wanna try it out - Vertigo_doni_mo.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

I guess you were just really unlucky in that we qualified next to each other and then ended up pitting on the same lap, presuming thats how it divides up the pit lanes.

I believe the allocations are done as each driver joins the server; I've intentionally removed all the pit groups from the ballasted cars to reduce the sharing to a minimum, but except at Spa (which has a glut of pit boxes) there will always be some sharing, and no pattern to who shares with who.

[popabawa]

The setup is in the online garage if you wanna try it out - Vertigo_doni_mo.

Cheers Mo, I appreciate it

I was watching you in qualifying zipping through the chicane like it almost wasn't there and it reminded me of a couple of seasons back when you shared your set-up at Spa (I think it was the GT3) with me when you were similarly ploughing through Bus Stop. I tried to replicate your speed and line maybe 20-30 times before giving up in utter frustration! I guess this set-up will get me as far but I'll try anyway

[LEUVEN]

Happy with qualifying, but surprised to see a Vertigo in second especially in front of Paul who I wasn't surprised to see up the front.
mo seemed to have kept his Qually speed and took it to the race , and pressured me a lot.
IIRC mo overtook me then I took him back but I lost the lead when I ended up sideways in Coppice.
A shame really as I was fat with fuel and may have had a good long battle with mo and Paul if I had gotten to grips with the car early on.

The spin pushed me all the way down to 20th as it was quite early on and as I was trying to claw back the places I had a coming together with Jan which resulted in us both going off, the worst thing was we were having a great duel too. :'( thankfully theres more grass down at the Foggarty Esses rather than glue sand traps.

I managed to pick up some speed around half distance and set out to move up the grid, helped by me staying out later than even the vertigo of popabawa I was able to jump a few places.
Now with a light car and some fresh tyres I was able to grab one or two more positions before finishing on the podium.

Congrats to Ceejay and Shark on their class wins, Ruskus' second place. 

[purdie]

yeah congrats to ceejay, great drive.

I lvoed as i struggled past NGT's and u just came out of nowhere, passed us all and then drove into distance!!

Plus grats to ruskus on a great come back drive! Saw the spin and when u recovered onto track the the craners i didn't even bother passing u!

[CeeJay]

that Lambo was me, Thought you were a bit further away than you obviously were, sorry about that Ceejay

ah yes it was you, np tho, just raised my heart rate for a while hehe

[stnasky]

Fair-ish race for me. Enjoyed it thorougly,  couldnt believe my luck at the start to see Martin and Ruskus touch and spin on the first lap .  Claus just drove off into the distance and could'nt do anything about it. 

Had some battles with Ruskus which went on for a few laps with me just able to keep a little gap while passing the NGT cars,  but eventually he caught and passed me .  Then i was slipping, lost another spot to James and then lost another spot to Martin who tapped me at the hairpin and left me facing the wrong way.

Then everyone seemed to dive into the pits, in no time i was in 1st place.  My plan was to stay out for as long as possible and then come into pit for a splash and dash,  I would of needed 26 minutes worth of fuel to see me to the end, and was'nt for taking tyres which would of made it a fast stop.  However on entry to pitlane the guy with the board was nowhere to be seen,  which meant i couldnt stop.  i did'nt have enough fuel to make it round for another lap as the counter was showing 1L,  so i quit.

Would like to apologise to Jan and M Jonzo for an over aggressive piece of dive bombing at the last turn,  think i bumped Jan during that .  great awareness from the NGT drivers.

[Bernie Lomax]

A tough race on man and machine. Had a great opening 20 mins battling with Jonzo, Truetom and others. Unfortunaelt Jonzo nudged off by a lapping GT and then a couple of laps later I got punted off by a lapping GT as well. Some of the GT's could have possibly been a bit more patient when overtaking.

Was always playing catch up after that but ultimately only caught myself out and spun trying to stay in ahead of Paul968 with only a lap or two left.
An enjoyable first half.

[Mark J]

Actually, have to say, after watching  the replay, the gt i had contact with was blameless, as he was glued to the rear spoiler of the GT car in front and its actually me coming back across into the blind spot that caused me to get a side swipe onto the grass. He was so close to the first GT car that he wasnt visible to me. 

Its quite amazing how different incidents look on the replay compared to how they 'feel' when your driving your adrenaline filled nuts off during the race